Apart from saving lives, civilian drones are becoming a good business. By 2020, the market will be worth $100bn in areas such as surveying, security and delivery. Discover what our robot, Athena, thinks the varied future of drones could be, act accordingly or click any link to read the evidence gleaned from 3,007 reports, articles and PowerPoints from the web and social media in a few seconds.

Analysis
This summary analysis draws from our robot’s below visualizations of the future of drones and draws from different vantage points to tell the story of what’s emerging just like a GPS system.

Systems map: Expect drone applications to proliferate into many aspects of life as the systems map shows.

Radar chart: By 2025, the transportation sector is likely to be experiencing the biggest transformation with agriculture and hardware production earning huge revenues from consumers and industry alike.

Graph-It: Voice and AI will bring a massive shift in instore and ecommerce shopping habits with security and privacy at the forefront of sellers and buyers minds in 2021. Zero trust is on the rise.

Spline chart (Beta): Peak activity in terms of drone development is expected to peak around 2023 with a then tailing away of the phenomena to more business as usual.

Emerging Drivers:However, while the impact of drones will be very high, the tipping point for public acceptance is likely to lag due to concerns primarily about security to safety that will see much increased regulations and controls over use.

Sentiment: This is reflected in both sentiment charts below that indicate much higher levels of concern about the negative impacts of drones than any new technology we have covered over the years. Indeed, it’s the first time our robot identified more negative sentiments than positive. However, there are many positive sentiments towards drones particularly in dramatically improved delivery, inspection and subsequent cost reduction.

Pie Charts: The Pie Charts reflect that apart from increasing hobby drones we have yet to witness intense commercial use. 66% of efforts are still early stage while only ~10% can be considered ‘established to ‘growing’. But, the financial impact as roadblocks are overcome is substantial with most pundits suggesting a billions of dollars industry in just a decade.

Heat map: Most of the activity around drones is focused on transportation development, particularly in the United States, but most are still in weak signal or emerging mode.

Geography:Drone activity is likely to be concentrated first in America, Australia, China and the UK before expanding to other countries.

SWOT: Lastly, the SWOT chart shows predominant drone opportunities and strengths but also accompanying major threats and weaknesses that could raise real concerns about their ongoing use without strong controls.

Potential Responses (New)
Determine how you can respond to Athena’s findings by examining your Options here either on your own publicly, or collaboratively if our private client.

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Visuals
For more detailed explanation of the graphics below please click here. All outlooks based on 2025 unless otherwise stated.

System map
Expect drone applications to proliferate into many aspects of life as the systems map shows.

Radar chart
The future impact of drones is going to be off-the-chart for many sectors including Transport, Energy, IT, Support Services, Security, Retail and Government )both civil and military).

Graph-It
By 2025, the transportation sector is likely to be experiencing the biggest transformation with agriculture and hardware production earning huge revenues from consumers and industry alike.

Spline (Beta)Peak activity in terms of drone development is expected to peak around 2023 with a then tailing away of the phenomena to more business as usual.

The blue line represents the five-year moving average of the aggregated splines that can be seen in background.

Emerging Drivers
However, while the impact of drones will be very high, the tipping point for public acceptance is likely to lag due to concerns primarily about security to safety that will see much increased regulations and controls over use.

Sentiment
This is reflected in both sentiment charts below that indicate much higher levels of concern about the negative impacts of drones than any new technology we have covered over the years. Indeed, it’s the first time our robot identified more negative sentiments than positive.

However, there are many positive sentiments towards drones particularly in dramatically improved delivery, inspection and subsequent cost reduction.

Pie ChartsThe Pie Charts reflect that apart from increasing hobby drones we have yet to witness intense commercial use. 66% of efforts are still early stage while only ~10% can be considered ‘established to ‘growing’. But, the financial impact as roadblocks are overcome is substantial with most pundits suggesting a billions of dollars industry in just a decade.

Heat mapMost of the activity around drones is focused on transportation development, particularly in the United States, but most are still in weak signal or emerging mode.

Geography
Drone activity is likely to be concentrated first in America, Australia, China and the UK before expanding to other countries.

SWOTLastly, the SWOT chart shows predominant drone opportunities and strengths but also accompanying major threats and weaknesses that could raise real concerns about their ongoing use without strong controls.